By John King, Business Development Manager at Umbrella Managed Systems
Last month, I wrote about why we blog. The more I thought about why we blog, the more I realized we do more than write a bunch of words that someone will hopefully read. We do this entire exercise to make an inherently complex or boring topic interesting. We’re always looking for the hook… “Why are we telling this story?” And, “What’s the point?”
An issue we face constantly is getting too deep into the jargon and technical verbiage. It’s because we’re dealing with technology all the time. We live it. So when we’re telling our stories, we try to speak in plain English. If we can’t distill a technical idea into something people can understand, then we’ve failed.
This is also true from an operations and sales perspective. Heath likes to say “write it in Crayon, especially for John.” Our internal processes and procedures need to be straight forward and easy to understand and follow.
Here a few blog ideas we decided to leave on the cutting room floor:
- How to match the color of your firewall and servers to your office décor.
- WAP, what is it good for? Does it really matter?
- Port Exhaustion, You and Me. A Case Study.
- Where have all the drive caddies gone?
- The Evolution of Passwords.
- Is it plugged in? Have you rebooted? And other great IT Tips and Tricks.
- How to install a server in 4,000 easy to follow steps.
The answer to why these ideas don’t make it out of our blog committee is simple: they’re boring. A good blog is something that the reader wants to read! Something that will make them laugh. Something that teaches a new concept. A story that makes them think. If the reader doesn’t care about flash storage or Ethernet cables or any other tech, then we shouldn’t talk about it.
Our value is derived in caring and translating. Our team is tasked with breaking down complex information technology issues into bite-size portions that people can understand. (There’s a byte/bite joke in here somewhere.)
If you feel your IT is getting lost in translation, please give me a call. I have two floors full of translators ready to work with you and your team.
